Last week Patty Twaites, a DCS Senior EDI Specialists with over a decade of experience in SAP, spoke at a SAP user group conference about how to build a strong EDI department. Below is the important information you need to know about the building blocks of a strong EDI foundation with reliability.
Network & Internet Service Provider
The first building block is your network and Internet Service Provider (ISP). This means your translator, which accepts an EDI transmission and converts the data into proper format. They should have 24/7 availability with planned outages that are communicated in advanced.
A good collaboration of the EDI department and network support is also essential. The EDI department needs to understand the network side and vice versa. Everything from hardware, database, and email should be able to be supported by both.
Software & Maintenance
The next block is software and maintenance. They need to be a workhorse. They should not only be easy to use, but also responsive with no daily tweaking needed. If you or others are making changes daily, your system is not reliable and must be fixed immediately. This may go hand in hand with having your software installed properly. You need to make sure it is sized, maintained and installed on appropriate hardware.
Do you have a Disaster Recovery Plan in place? If so, have you verified it works? If no plan is in place, you need to develop one immediately, document well, and test it with your team to make sure you are prepared for an emergency. Your tools should be able to run in any light-out scenario because that is what will make a difference if a problem arises. This includes your scheduler, notifications, and reports.
Data Flow & Content
Lastly and most importantly, your data needs to get where it is going 100% of the time. Your external communications should be using acknowledgments such as MDNs, 997s, and control documents. Your internal communication should be using status messages.
Accurate data is the most important part of your process. If there is missing or incorrect data it must be managed, whether that is with acknowledgment reports or BD87s and workflow. No data corrections should be needed after the fact, it should be correct every time it is sent.
You may think this requires customized mapping for standard transactions, but there is no need to “re-create the wheel.” Odds are Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies around the world have probably run into the problems you face at one point or another. Searching out these options will benefit you in the long run. If you ever plan to upgrade your system, custom code and workarounds will only add more headaches.
Conclusion
There are many factors to think about when building a strong EDI department, but these three blocks should be your main focus. Many of these you have under control, while some may be slipping by the way side. DCS is here to help you throughout your process, no matter what you currently have or plan to have. We have the experience of not only your software, but also your industry. Contact us today to begin your FREE Assessment and get the ball rolling in the right direction.
What makes your EDI department strong? How did you find weaknesses and resolve them?
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